“At the heart of…USAID’s transformation, is the core belief that each country must lead its development journey, and finance and implement solutions to its development challenges,” said Susan Fine of USAID at a recent Center for Global Development event introducing USAID’s new “Journey to Self-Reliance ” indicators.

“Gender equality and women’s empowerment [need to be] at the center of the fight against extreme poverty, hunger, and malnutrition, and also in any efforts to build sustainable peace,” said Ilaria Sisto at a recent CSIS event on the critical role of women and girls in ensuring food and nutrition in times of conflict.

“Some people are more vulnerable than others” to climate change, said Judy Oglethorpe, senior director of Multilateral Program Development of the World Wildlife Fund-US (WWF) at a recent event on climate change, biodiversity, and livelihoods. Oglethorpe is the chief of party for the Hariyo Ban (Green Forests) Program, which seeks to increase ecological and community resilience to climate change in two biodiverse landscapes in Nepal. Taking a “multi-scale approach let[s] us focus on the most vulnerable people,” said Oglethorpe, and “work at different scales and across different disciplines…to reduce people’s vulnerability.”

If women have non-communicable diseases (NCDs)—like cancer and diabetes—“at the time of pregnancy, [it] can hugely impact future generations,” said Adya Misra the associate editor of PLOS One at a recent event hosted by the Maternal Health Task Force (MHTF) to mark the launch of the fifth MHTF-PLOS collection, Non-Communicable Diseases and Maternal Health Around the Globe. “If we do not address NCDs in a maternal health continuum of care, we will, for so many issues, be short changing the progress we have seen [in maternal health] because NCDs are on the rise,” said Katja Iversen, president and CEO of Women Deliver.